Random Ogre Thoughts

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Monthly Archives: October 2012

I know some people are surprised to see a volley of posts from me, but that’s the way it’s going to be. When the mood strikes me I’ll throw up (see what I did there?) some posts in the time I have available to do so, catching people (who don’t care) up on what’s going on in my world.

I know some other people are suggesting I schedule the posts out to appear throughout the week. To that I say, “Schedule out your reading of my many posts over the week and it’ll feel like I’m posting once per day!” Really, I’m too lazy to set up a schedule for all these posts.

I can’t guarantee regularity so I’ll post when I can and you’ll like it! (Just think, you can tell your grandchildren about how back in your day you suffered through long spans of not having my posts to read!)

Back in my day, Smaken only posted once every couple of months and when he did, it was a deluge of posts burying you in words on the screen to the point of suffocation! And you liked it! You kids these days with your tweets, video streams and instant gratification…

That link is moderately safe for a liberal place of work and too priceless to not post.

I won’t gush about this game too much but I easily could. I saw this mid-September, took a look at it closer then pre-ordered it. When it came out early October it completely owned my game time. I set aside WoW, Guild Wars 2, Borderlands 2 and Torchlight 2 for it. I played through it twice; once on Easy (I thought I put it higher up after restarting after the Tutorial) then again on Normal. I’m holding off on doing Classic with Ironman mode (my family misses me), but I hear it calling so I suspect I’ll be at it again.

I let the Pathfinder (D&D/WNG/Wednesday Night) group know I wouldn’t be back playing after taking a number of breaks. First break was during the loss of who would have been our third child (it’s right around that time now), then after the layoff I didn’t much feel like leaving the house and after a short bit back, I took another break because of family scheduling (kids were in soccer 3/5 week nights and which fell on TheWife’s gym nights) where I took one for the Family Team. I was supposed to go back but when the day of return surprised me (literally – I didn’t know until that day that it was the day I was supposed to get back to it) I realized it just wasn’t a priority any more.

I miss the night out and miss the guys – somewhat. Looking over the forums I see things I didn’t miss. Like arguing over (or discussing at length) tracking 1-2 pounds of food which really only ever comes into play if someone can cast Create Food and Water while someone else is 1-2 pounds away from the next level of encumbrance.

Really guys? Definition of pedantic.

That wasn’t intended to offend – in some ways it’s reassuring that I wasn’t the sole source of such things. And in some ways I miss it… the arguing.

Here’s how you deal with it. The one casting Create Food and Water says, “Guys, I’m giving you one day’s worth of food and water so if you’re two pounds away from the next encumbrance level, you’re going to bump into the level until you eat lunch…. or take a dump after breakfast. K? No one is that close to their next encumbrance level? Cool.”(The ‘dump’ bit wasn’t in the rules, I added that part for color… brown color, otherwise see a doctor.)

That said, it’s not the reason I left at all. As I said above, it just wasn’t a priority. I had been considering dropping it before but certain people talked me out of it (for the record: pre-Qwerty and then post-Qwerty; they know what I’m talking about) and I hung on for awhile longer.

It’s a good group of guys that has lasted for a long time (over 10 years now?) and I’m hoping to pop out to the odd pub night they have if they end up canceling a game evening…

Rogue hit 90th and is slowly creeping up gear iLvls to being ready for LFR. I was working on my reputations which really don’t get me much at all. More Leatherworking recipes, some items for Valor or Justice which are upgrades but getting Valor or Justice points involves more work than I’m able (or willing) to commit to, tabards and mounts – which I don’t feel much need to acquire.

So yeah. Not a lot for me to look forward to without the driving urge to raid I had previously.

I log in, do dailies, run the odd heroic, watch the monk tank do way more DPS than he should, cry a little inside, run more dailies, do my Tillers stuff and log out.

I don’t have a lot of motivation to do otherwise.

I considered leveling my Hunter and ran around Jade Forest with him for a bit but couldn’t get into it for some reason. I must be tired.

I considered leveling a number of other alts but really couldn’t settle on anything… so I’ll keep plugging away when I have time and slowly creep up to LFR acceptable item level.

Then regret that I’m in LFR.

I have found that running Heroics (LFD) remains mostly impersonal, just get it done. I admit I don’t contribute much to it either way. The people in the group are transitory, I’ll likely never see them again even with some of the preferential code in LFD (attempts to group you with people on your server over complete strangers – so partial strangers mainly) so I feel no desire to chit chat. About the only time it does get personal is when someone does something wrong and others pounce on them for it.

No, I’m not on either end of those (unless I’m running a dungeon with UFTimmy – then I’m always on the receiving end of “you suck” tells).

Stuck in a queue, that’s right.. a queue. Despite the fact that WoW only sold 700,000 boxes off the shelf. (Of course, we’re not including digital sales in those figure because no one buys right through Blizzard who has access to your credit card and make it so simple to purchase through them even to the point of not needing the CDs/DVD that come in the box when you do buy the box because you’ve already got it downloaded on your system you just really need the key!

Whew.

My fingers ran out of breath there.

Motoring along nicely with the rouge (new main). He’s already capped in Leatherworking, Skinning and First Aid. I’ve worked him up into Pandaria cooking levels too. I switched him from Combat to Assassination and bought up all the glyphs that I was missing.

I like Assassination better for leveling. Yeah, it’s not as durable as Combat, but I like the damage output and burstieness of it. That’s a word, I just invented it! Watching the DPS meter as Combat and I wasn’t breaking 10k on solo mobs, with Assassination the numbers are over 15k as I explode mobs in a cloud of poisoned frenzy.

That and there is twice the ass in Assassination.

Up to 89th and into Townlong Steppes (I think it’s called), motoring through the Mantid line of quests now. Enjoying it, taking my time. Admittedly, I took a lot of time this weekend which was the first weekend I’ve had in months where there wasn’t a birthday party or sleep over.

I moved my tank (Kremus/Blood DK) into Pandaria, just far enough to get out of the harbor area. It was much smoother early Saturday morning. I’ve been tossing him some of the greens and blues the rouge (yes, I’m spelling it that way intentionally) has been crafting that don’t sell well. In exchange, he’s keeping my rouge’s weapons enchanted.

I’ve also been throwing my cloth to my Mage who is working his way through Tailoring. I believe I bought him all the recipes available on trainers without getting into the major city in Pandaria. He’s been throwing greens and blues to Kremus for enchanting too.

I took a brief dabble into the whole Pokemon/Pet Battles thing, though didn’t take it too far. It’s interesting in that your progress is account bound. That means all my companions level up as I use them regardless of which character I use them on. I’m not sure if the training is Account-wide, but it seems to be. I suspect I’ll use a low level alt to work through the lower level Pet Battles once I get to it. But I’ll get to that later… right now character progression and new dungeons are beckoning.

I’m debating what alt I will play with next. Tempted to knuckle down and get the Warrior through and up into MoP but that will be quite the undertaking. Smaken is an obvious answer… Hunters is leveling machines. I am tempted to see how the Monk plays out so that’s a thought too.